Parent with MM

Hello, my dad was recently diagnosed with multiple myeloma. Understandably, the diagnosis has been hard on my family. My dad has never been one to talk about his emotions or ask for help. He is also a doctor.  I’m afraid that he is holding back his emotions.  I know that if the diagnosis has had this big of an impact on me and the strong sense of sadness, fear, anger, grief, etc i have felt, that he must feel those emotions too. But he doesn’t show it because i know he doesn’t want us to worry about him and he doesn’t want to be a “burden” even though we have reassured him many times that is not the case. Im not sure how to approach the conversation with him so he doesn’t have to go through this alone all because he doesn’t want to worry or burden us. 

Another thing i worry about is that he is only telling us bits and pieces of what he knows about his cancer but not everything.  He doesn’t want my mom to go to medical appointments with him and i fear that he isn’t telling us some details of his cancer because he doesn’t want us to worry. I work in the medical field and he has assigned me as the second medical power of attorney (my mom is first). It’s important to my family that we know information regarding his test results, status and stage of his cancer, and its stability but i feel that he is keeping things from us as an attempt to protect us. I’m also not sure how to approach this. 

I’m thankful to have a forum like this so i can talk to others about what I’m going through. Until my dads diagnosis, I’ve never felt the stress, worry, and grief that i do now. Thanks fir listening to my concerns and providing any feedback you may have.